MADISON — Wisconsin candidates have spent nearly $1 million this year on something many voters hate.

Campaign finance data from the state Government Accountability Board shows that 51 state candidate and election groups have spent a combined $979,150 on “media phones/robocalls.”

You’re probably familiar with political robocalls. They often interrupt your dinner with a celebrity voice, a recorded reminder to vote, or a nasty message about someone on the ballot.

“They’re everywhere and both sides do them,” said Mike McCabe, executive director of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, which tracks campaign activity. “I think they’re a scourge and I’ve yet to meet anyone who doesn’t hate them.

“And yet they continue unabated.”

Most of the robocall spending in Wisconsin this year happened in the spring, when campaigns unloaded massive dollars in the run-up to the June 5 gubernatorial recall election.

Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett reported spending $406,875 on the calls in his attempt to replace Gov. Scott Walker, who spent $225,922 on them.

A new barrage of calls is about to begin as the Nov. 6 election approaches. Dozens of presidential, congressional and state candidates are on the ballot in Wisconsin.

“In the last six weeks (of the campaign), if you are in a battleground state, you’ll get about 10 to 15 calls a day from all the variety of interest groups, candidates, state parties, national parties, unions, (political action committees) and all these other things,” said Shaun Dakin, head of the Washington D.C.-based National Political Do Not Contact Registry.

Dakin’s nonprofit organization allows people to sign up for a list that political candidates voluntarily can use to screen out people who don’t want to be called. Dakin said 35 politicians across the country, but none from Wisconsin, have signed on.

Cost down, use up

Nationally, robocalls are on the rise. According to the Pew Research Center, the calls became prominent in the 2006 mid-term elections. An April 2008 Pew report found that 39 percent of voters had received robocalls.

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That number grew to about 69 percent in 2010, Dakin said.

“Candidates are doing them more, and are doing them more per day. The technology allows them to do them cheaper, faster, more efficiently.”

While the cost of the calls can add up, they’re still cheap in the larger scope of campaign spending. This year’s robocall expense, for example, represent less than 1 percent of spending on state campaigns in Wisconsin, campaign finance records show.

“They are a tiny percentage of campaign expenses. The big money is spent on television advertising,” McCabe said.

Dakin said it might cost a campaign $2,000 to make 800,000 robocalls. “The prices are falling and they are falling every year.”

For the price of a couple of fast-food lunches, the Democratic Party of Brown County on April 24 reminded its 450 members to vote: $11.88.

“We found out it’s really cheap and a really good way to contact people,” said Deb Stover, the party’s communications chairwoman.

In addition to being cheap, robocalls are an easy way to organize volunteers and leverage celebrity voices, said Arnold Shober, an assistant professor of government at Lawrence University in Appleton.

And, the campaigns will know they hit their audience.

“You, as a campaign, have to worry, ‘Did the person see the TV commercial?’” Shober said. “Here, you know at least the answering machine in the house got a direct advertisement to them.”

Entrenched and unchecked

Despite legitimate questions about the calls’ effectiveness, campaigns are unwilling to abandon the tactic, McCabe said.

“I think what it boils down to is, no campaign manager wants to lose an election and then be blamed for leaving some arrow in the quiver,” he said. “One side does them, the other side feels obliged to do them, too.”

This year, groups of all political stripes and causes have placed robocalls in Wisconsin. Planned Parenthood Advocates of Wisconsin spent $43,948; Wisconsin Right to Life PAC spent $300. The Voces de la Frontera Action Committee, a Milwaukee-based group that works for immigrant rights, spent $598. The Racine Tea Party Political Action Committee spent $797.

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Campaigns that place robocalls in Wisconsin face little regulation.

Fourteen states regulate political robocalls, to some extent, but the restrictions vary, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Arkansas and Wyoming don’t allow the calls. Indiana, Minnesota, Montana, North Carolina and North Dakota allow them if an actual person with the campaign receives consent to play the message. New Hampshire bans calls to numbers on the national do-not-call list.

Wisconsin does not restrict robocalls.

“There haven’t been meaningful attempts to rein in the practice at all, and I think it’s because both sides are very heavily invested in the practice,” McCabe said. “(But) I think your average voter in Wisconsin hates these just as much as voters anywhere hate them.”

Taking on the issue of robocalls can be a lonely fight for a lawmaker.

In Michigan, Republican state Sen. Rick Jones recently introduced a bill that would regulate the calls there.

“Here in Michigan it’s like the wild, wild west,” Jones said. “You can do a robocall, call people and tell complete lies about your political opponent and not even say who is making the call.”

Jones’ bill would add robocalls to Michigan’s no-call list. He said the idea is popular with voters, but he doesn’t have high hopes.

“It’s extremely difficult to get bills passed on robocalls because both parties use them,” he said. “And they don’t want them to go away.”

How to respond

Dakin, the National Political Do Not Contact Registry director, said campaigns routinely ignore a federal law that permits robocalls, but only to landlines, not cellphones.

“If you called up 10 politicians right now or consultants, you would be lucky to find one that knows that,” he said. “There’s plenty of politicians and candidates and campaigns that are violating that law right now. I get hundreds of complaints a day from people who are getting calls to cellphones.”

Dakin said that when a person gets a robocall to a cellphone, they should call the campaign back to tell them the illegal call happened and then report the matter to the Federal Communications Commission.

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“It’s a start. (The FCC) is not going to be sending a posse of people out immediately to do anything about it. But the more they hear about it, the more documentation they get, the more evidence they have, the more they will be able to act on this.”

He also advises people to get caller ID and consider blocking anonymous calls if the phone system allows it.

While political robocalls are legal in Wisconsin, Reid Magney, spokesman for the Government Accountability Board, said his agency will investigate calls that mislead voters about when to vote, who can vote or where to vote.

In June, after media reports suggested some people received calls on Election Day telling them they did not have to vote if they signed a recall petition, state Sen. Lena Taylor, D-Milwaukee, asked the agency to investigate. Magney said he could not comment on the matter.

Taylor said she hopes the agency follows up on her request.

“We know that voter intimidation and voter disenfranchisement are items that exist,” she said. “This is an example.”

But if a robocall simply makes a negative campaign accusation, Magney said, there’s nothing his agency can do.

“In that case, we certainly feel for you and it’s unfortunate that people have to put up with that, but in terms of legalities … it’s not something we have jurisdiction over.”